244 Quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

Everybody's business is nobody's business.

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belonged to intellectual superiority.

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

There is no country in Europe which is so easy to over-run as Spain; there is no country which it is more difficult to conquer.

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle.

An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.